The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:

So wrote Charlie Fuqua, GOP candidate for the Arkansas legislature, in a book he published earlier this year. He has declined to talk to the press further about his very biblical statement. In a 2009 book, Fuqua also wrote that "There is only one solution for the Muslim problem in America," and you don't have to imagine very hard to imagine correctly what he meant by that.

But Fuqua isn't the main reason I wanted to post. I could have let that news go; it's everywhere this morning, after all.

Last night, as I was driving to the grocery store, I flipped through the radio and landed on a local "Christian Talk" radio station where the host was flipping out about Fuqua. "This guy's crazy, right? Kill your children? I mean, that's just nuts. Help me out here, folks. Linda, you're on the line."

Linda delivered the crazy. "Chuck," she said, "You have to understand. It's not crazy. It makes sense in biblical terms. When that was written, people lived five hundred, six hundred years, maybe even seven hundred years. If children rebelled, it was very dangerous and could last a long time, and they had to be put down just the way you put down a rabid dog."

I had to turn it off at that point.

The sad part is, Linda doesn't even knowm her Bible. By the time of Deuteronomy, the sins of Cain and Ham had caught up with mankind and mankind had long been reduced to the allotted three-score and ten years.

The scariest part, to me, is the "it was very dangerous" as exusing evil

The trashing of the Bill of Rights, of the U.S. human rights record, of the rule of law - the establishment of the TSA - the interment of Americans from Japanese families - the U.S. does and did all of these with the "it was very dangerous" as an excuse.

Re: The scariest part, to me, is the "it was very dangerous" as exusing evil

I am reminded of the interview Gustave Gilbert conducted with Hermann Göring in his cell at Nuremberg:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

It's a trenchant observation, and one that has proven true again and again over the years.

I'm always very nervous around anyone that's getting their guide to wrong and right from an external source.

If your sense of good and bad is so badly messed up that you can even say the things that Charlie or Linda are saying, that you can't internally work out that, biblical terms or not, it's an abhorrent idea, and have to rely on some outside force (pastor, holy book, talk-back radio) to tell you what is the right thing to do, then how can I trust you?

I'm assuming it's upbringing in most cases, they have been brought up to use these external sources as their guide to life, so they have lost the ability to know when they are being guided the wrong way.

It's funny really. They say that atheists can't be trusted, while I think that people that let a book guide them to right and wrong are far more dangerous, because it's so very easy for somebody to make them do evil acts by convincing them that 'the book says you should do this'.

I'll note that not all theists have this problem, and not all atheists seem to have a useful internal sense of right and wrong, but some religions do strongly encourage this behaviour. And any time those groups have power, I'm nervous.

I personally think they should study how the rabbinate dealt with Deut 21:18-21 via the Talmud.

AIUI, what they came up with was this: Yes, it says you should put to death rebellious children. But the death penalty is onerous and extreme and it is beyond comprehension that you can put to death someone who is not legally responsible for their actions, i.e. below the age of bar mitzvah. After bar mitzvah they're an adult, so the law doesn't apply to them. Gurlz don't count, so this law only applies to male offspring who rebel on the morning of the day of their bar mitzvah.

("This gun is extremely dangerous, so we're going to put it on display prominently on this wall, and nail it to the wall for safety's sake, and maybe solder the trigger mechanism in position to display it to best effect.")